{"id":37817,"date":"2014-10-19T22:12:27","date_gmt":"2014-10-19T22:12:27","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.mixedracestudies.org\/wordpress\/?p=37817"},"modified":"2014-10-19T22:12:27","modified_gmt":"2014-10-19T22:12:27","slug":"ebola-has-exposed-americas-fear-and-barack-obamas-vulnerability","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/?p=37817","title":{"rendered":"Ebola has exposed America’s fear, and Barack Obama’s vulnerability"},"content":{"rendered":"

Ebola has exposed America’s fear, and Barack Obama’s vulnerability<\/strong><\/em><\/a><\/p>\n

The Guardian<\/a>
\n2014-10-19<\/p>\n

Gary Younge<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

The virus is a metaphor for all that conservatives loathe, and sees the president\u2019s policies under renewed attack<\/em><\/p>\n

In a column ostensibly explaining why moderates struggle in the Republican party, Washington Post<\/em> columnist Richard Cohen last year wrote<\/a>: \u201cPeople with conventional views must repress a gag reflex when considering the mayor-elect of New York<\/a> \u2013 a white man married to a black woman and with two biracial children. (Should I mention that Bill de Blasio\u2019s<\/a> wife, Chirlane McCray<\/a>, used to be a lesbian?) This family represents the cultural changes that have enveloped parts \u2013 but not all \u2013 of America.\u201d<\/p>\n

If the thought of New York\u2019s first family\u2019s interracial marriage makes many Republicans (and apparently Cohen) gag, imagine how many sick bags they are filling over Ebola<\/a>. The arrival of the virus in America<\/a> has crystallised a range of Conservative anxieties: immigration, race, terrorism, science, big government, Barack Obama<\/a> \u2013 you name it. For the right, Ebola is not just a disease, it is a metaphor for some of the things they don\u2019t understand and many of the things they loathe…<\/p>\n

…Finally, Ebola serves as a proxy for the many long-held Conservative prejudices about Obama \u2013 that he is an African-born interloper come to destroy America<\/a>. A 2010 poll showed that just under a third of Republicans believed Obama was a \u201cracist who hates white people<\/a>\u201d. Michael Savage, another rightwing radio host, calls him \u201cObola<\/a>\u201d. \u201cObama wants equality and he wants fairness, and it\u2019s only fair that America have a nice epidemic or two \u2026 to really feel what it\u2019s like to be in the third world. You have to look at it from the point of view of a leftist.\u201d…<\/p>\n

Read the entire article here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Ebola has exposed America’s fear, and Barack Obama’s vulnerability The Guardian 2014-10-19 Gary Younge The virus is a metaphor for all that conservatives loathe, and sees the president\u2019s policies under renewed attack In a column ostensibly explaining why moderates struggle in the Republican party, Washington Post columnist Richard Cohen last year wrote: \u201cPeople with conventional […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12,63,2039,8,26,394,20],"tags":[18203,3155,2103],"class_list":["post-37817","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-articles","category-barack-obama","category-health-medicine","category-media-archive","category-politics","category-socialscience","category-usa","tag-ebola-virus","tag-gary-younge","tag-the-guardian"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37817","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=37817"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37817\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=37817"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=37817"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=37817"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}